User blog:RRabbit42/Simplifying character descriptions
Summary I realized this that I should put in a summary because this was getting quite lengthy. Here it is: There is a lot of information that is going to be removed from this wiki in the future. Here's why. ; Going overboard I have noticed during the past two months that people are going overboard in trying to classify what type of character a character is. It's happened on this wiki and on about a dozen others that I'm aware of. Some of it is being added as a form of vandalism. Others are adding it because they seem fixated on trying to define what a character is and that's the only kind of edit they make. Some of the classification is pretty straightforward: protagonist and antagonist. Hero and villain, to use more general terms. Some of it is a mis-use of a word. Specifically, deuteragonist and tritagonist. If you look up those words in a dictionary, you'll see that they refer to actors, not characters. But even if you relax those definitions to include characters, they're still being mis-used. Where people are going overboard is by trying to rigidly define exactly what level of a character is. Some of the examples I've come across include: # "tertiary protagonist" # "secondary antagonist" being changed to "tertiary antagonist", then being changed back to "secondary antagonist" and back to tertiary. # "the (former) main, but semi, antagonist" # "the (former) fourth, but semi, antagonist" # statements that a character was "constantly thought to be" or was "rumored to be" (fill in the blank as to what level of a character they've decided to use this time) # "the secondary antagonist-turned-tertiary tritagonist" The second one shows that the people who want to add this kind of information can't even make up their mind how to define a character. I have also seen a few instances where the same person flip-flopped between two or more definitions. The last four show how silly it is getting in trying to rigidly define a character like this. The third means "they used to be the main antagonist, but now they're kind of an antagonist". Likewise, the fourth one means "they used to the fourth antagonist, but now their partially an antagonist". The last one means "they used to be a level below the main antagonist but now they've become a third-level co-protagonist". And as for #5, anyone can make up a rumor or "constantly think", so neither is a valid source of information. These phrases were also used to justify antagonist fussing and to imply that other people were wrong about what the antagonist was. Another example I saw is one person tried to call a storm an antagonist. Yes, you read that right. They were trying to say that weather, which has no mind of its own, was a living, thinking character that opposed the protagonist. Now, setting aside the dictionary's definition of those words and the motivation for trying to add this information, which has been typically vandalism or being fixated or obsessed with it (which often leads to vandalism), and the fact that people can't make up their minds about what to put in, there's two important factors to consider: # Is it really important and useful to the average reader to know exactly, precisely, what level of a character someone is? # Is it likely that the people who make the movies and TV shows are trying to apply rigid definitions to their own characters? The answer to both questions is no. Characters get grouped into broad categories: main characters, supporting characters, background characters and the like. Even people who formally study literature aren't likely to say "I need to define exactly what this character is like in relation to all of the other characters in the story". What the character does, what their personality is like, yes. But exactly what level of antagonist or protagonist or secondary antagonist or tertiary protagonist, fourth-cousin-once-removed who used to be a protagonist but now has gone over to the bad side of The Force to become the "tertiary hidden, but true, antagonist"? No. This is why I have been trying to simplify the character descriptions on this wiki, and it's why we now have a policy about it: DreamWorks Wiki:Protagonists. Even Wikipedia's Manual of Style says to avoid using "protagonist" and "antagonist" in favor of a plot summary that describes what role the character has rather than trying to define it with a label. Some of the places where I removed this information is worded a bit clunky. It needs to be changed to more of an "in-universe" view, rather than the "X is a character in the film Y" manner used on Wikipedia and other sites. We'll get that changed later, and I would appreciate any help with updating that wording to make it flow better and be in-universe. ; More simplification There are other parts of a character's page that can be simplified. Most of it is in the Infobox on the right side of the page. If you look at the one for Fiona or Shrek, those Infoboxes are several paragraphs long. An Infobox is supposed to be a summary. If it is necessary to have a lengthy detailed list, then a few items should be listed with an in-page link to where the rest of the information is. For example, to do an in-page link to the "Appearances" section, you would use see more.... I would say that a few sections of the Infobox can probably be deleted and just put that information on the main part of the page itself. For example, "Performance model", "Designer" and "Animators" could probably go together under a "Character design" or "Background information" section. ; Legitimate and documented inspirations And finally, one more item in the Infobox that's being mis-used is the "Inspiration" section. People seem to be using that to list other characters that this one is similar to, even if those other characters are for stories not made by DreamWorks. The "Inspiration" section should be for documented instances where the people involved in making a TV show or movie stated that character X was inspired by character Y. That's going to be few and far between because the company that made character Y is going to want recognition for being the inspiration of character X, and the way they usually want that recognition is in the form of money. The Trivia section seems to be a dumping ground for more similarities. Those are likely going to be removed because those similarities are fairly relaxed and often have exceptions. "Character X is similar to character Y for reasons A, B, C and D, except for reason E, which is different than for character Y." There are common themes and character traits in storytelling, so there is always going to be situations where one character is similar to another character. Unless there is an interview or other published documentation to back it up, similarities are going to be a matter of personal interpretation and wouldn't a good source for it to be included or to remain on the page. ; Wrap-up While a majority of this is being prompted by having to fix vandalism or edits by people who are just obsessed with over-labelling characters, it is going to help by making sure we have better information that isn't bogged down by minutia. Category:Community News Category:Blog posts